Louis

He's been framed!

Storm front

When we headed home it was sunny above us, but the clouds were lining up just short of the Rocky Mountain Front.

Cave Mountain Campground, MT

Ok, the campground of course was closed for winter, but we backed up to the closed gate and hiked around a bit with the dogs.  Should have put their boots on, we had to cut the romp short due to ice balls in the pads of their feet.  Forgot to take pics of the campground.

It did not take anytime at all for the puppies to pass out after their romp in the snow.

 Bailey is on the left and Gator is on the right.

While the puppies slept we drove on up to Teton Ski area.

We admired the mountain tops along the way.

Lots of people at the ski area, so we did not stay long and headed for camp aka the folks.

Indian Head Rock, Choteau, MT

Not far up the North Fork of the Teton River there is a small sign pointing across the river.  If you look up at the top of the mountain you can make out the profile of a face on the mountain.

I don't remember the trees being so close to his nose.

Cheating at camping :)P

Decided to go camping, so we went to the North Fork of the Teton River and played around.
Since the campgrounds up there are closed this time of year we parked at my parents house (and stole some electricity for the electric mattress pad and electric heater)

I admired tons of these birds all over a bush at the gas station while Suzi pumped gas. 

Stopped By Eureka Res. on the way to the mountains.  

We stop here all the time.

Bailey thinks it makes a great rest stop for Frisbee catching!

It was a bit windy, blowing the snow across the road.  

Turned out the clouds in the mountains was also blowing snow.

(by the way the ufo above Ear Mt is just a repaired rock chip on my windshield.)

Is it a hawk? a young eagle?

At first when I spotted this bird I thought it was an osprey, but have since found out they don't winter here.
It was the size of a large hawk or even a Bald Eagle.  Maybe it is a young Bald Eagle, but it has some light markings on both the top and bottom sides of the wing? I never got to see it's head, just its back side.

I am posting a bunch of photos to better make out all the markings on the bird.

Since it stayed in one spot for so long,  I thought it was attached to a string or maybe a fishing line?

Turned out it was just hovering above the dam outlet at Eureka Lake, MT.

Must have been a small rodent or something, the water is all froze over.

Santa says Merry Christmas from Great Falls, MT

Put together this Shadow Box for Suzi's Aunt Vivian and Uncle Bob's book.

Aunt Vivian is an artist who gave Suzi a book of her drawings with a poem for each drawing by Uncle Bob.

Catpost

 Finally got around to making Natasha and Louis a new catpost.  : )

 

I also put a shelf above the TV for Natasha.  Which she likes to sleep on.

But when we put the catnip toys in the stockings, it took no time at all for them to remove the stockings.

I had a lot of help building it.

We decided not to add shelves for stairs on this one. 

They will come later when the kitties age more and start having a hard time getting to the top. 

It is fun watching them scoot to the top.

Louis favorite thing is the rope wrapped scratcher I added at the bottom.

The cave at the bottom is also a hit.

Memorial Falls trail Montana

We woke up early and felt a need to go to the mountains.  Since there is not much snow (not enough for the ski areas to be open anyway) , and a good weather forecast, we decided to check out a short trail to Memorial Falls Montana just past Neihart, MT.  It is almost an hour from our house.
While no one was there we were thrilled to see we could access the parking area in our little Prius, and saw people tracks on the trail.  So we went for it.



The trail was narrow and some steep spots even had a hand rail.



The rocks above us were gorgeous looming above the trail.


It was fun listening to the water rushing under the ice along the trail.
Here is a video to get the idea.

Since we were alone we let the dogs off leash for a run.
They really enjoyed it!


We came to a short icy spot.  It was so warm the ice and a bit of water on it and was VERY slick!



Here is a video to see how Suzi and the dogs got past the ice.

We got our first glimpse of the water fall.


Here is a video of the falls.  Gator is running on the trail in this video.

Getting closer.







When we got to the waterfall there was a small bridge crossing the creek.  The trail continued on to the upper falls, but we turned around here.



another video of Memorial Falls.

Bailey in front, Gator and I took a rest on a stump before heading back down the trail.



We did not see anybody until we headed back then we ran into 2 couples on their way up.
That was a fun trail especially with so few on it today!  We had come by last summer, but the parking lot was full, so we moved on and did something else. I think we had good timing!

here is a link to the forest service site about this trail.
http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/lcnf/recreation/ohv/recarea/?recid=62652&actid=70

Sun River

Went down to the Sun River in Great Falls.  There is a thin layer of ice on the river already.

Interesting note, a while back I took Suzi to see the house 

I rented when Joe was a baby, and could not find it.  

Upon talking to locals we found out it was taken away by an ice flow.  

The house was located just on the other side of the bridge in this photo.

cat fence update

Looks like I will need to keep a close eye on the cat fence this winter. 

This is the first snow and it was a wet snow.  

Hoping the dry snow we get mostly will be less stress on the fence.

It is holding up well,  had some wind that assisted with taking the gate and 2 over hang parts apart. 

But overall it is holding up well.  This past week it survived high winds (60mph) with no issues.  

(I did not use glue thinking it would be easier to fix if it broke in bad weather)

Wiggley Field, Monroe, WA

Took the pups to the off leash dog area in Monroe.  

It is 4 acres, and they went here often mainly to play frisbee.

Gator is king of the agility course.

But Bailey always steels the show.  : )

Gator does not mind, she still has fun.

Red Moon

We looked out the window and saw the lunar eclipse of the super moon started.

Suzi is admiring the show.

This is as close to a full eclipse that we came.  The light part just rotated across the bottom of the moon.

Looked a lot brighter at the end of the show since the sky was much darker since the show started so close to sunset.

Super moon?

We were checking out the super moon and this cool cloud came by.

Deer

Saw this buck outside of Black Eagle, MT

Rainbow Dam North side

We decided to cross the river and check out the other side of Rainbow Dam.

There is a road for utility workers only that they allow pedestrians on.

Might be a better way to travel with the trike.

I was admiring this pelican taking a bath.

When I heard a bunch of extremely loud Canadian Geese honking away.

They were headed right for us thru the river valley the sound of them reverberating off the river wall.

That was fun.

We could see across the river to the bridge we had taken the trike to earlier in the month.

On our way back to town we looked back 

to see the railroad bridge crossing the Missouri  River at the top of the dam, 

with the Highwood Mountains in the distance.